Model-Guided Decision-Making for Thromboprophylaxis and Hospital-Acquired Thromboembolic Events Among Hospitalized Children and Adolescents
Authors: Shannon C. Walker, Benjamin French, Ryan P. Moore, Henry J. Domenico, Jonathan P. Wanderer, Amanda S. Mixon, C. Buddy Creech, Daniel W. Byrne, Allison P. Wheeler
Journal: JAMA Network Open (2023)

Importance Rates of hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (HA-VTE) are increasing among pediatric patients. Identifying at-risk patients for whom prophylactic interventions should be considered remains challenging. Objective To determine whether use of a previously validated HA-VTE prognostic model, together with pediatric hematologist review, could reduce pediatric inpatient rates of HA-VTE. Design, Setting, and Participants This pragmatic randomized clinical trial was performed from November 2, 2020, through January 31, 2022, at a single-center academic children’s hospital (Monroe Carell Jr Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt). All pediatric hospital admissions (aged &amp;amp;lt;22 years) under inpatient status were included and randomized. Intervention All patients had an HA-VTE probability automatically calculated daily, which was visible to the hematology research team for patients in the intervention group. Patients with an elevated risk (predicted probability ≥2.5%) underwent additional medical record review by the research team to determine eligibility for thromboprophylaxis. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcome was rate of HA-VTE. Secondary outcomes included rates of prophylactic anticoagulation and anticoagulation-associated bleeding events. Results A total of 17 427 hospitalizations met eligibility criteria, were randomized, and were included in the primary analysis: patients had a median (IQR) age of 1.7 (0 to 11.1) years; there were 9143 (52.5%) female patients and 8284 (47.5%) male patients, and there were 445 (2.6%) Asian patients, 2739 (15.9%) Black patients, and 11 752 (67.4%) White patients. The 2 groups were evenly balanced in number (8717 in the intervention group and 8710 in the control group) and patient characteristics. A total of 58 patients (0.7%) in the control group and 77 (0.9%) in the intervention group developed HA-VTE (risk difference: 2.2 per 1000 patients; 95% CI, −0.4 to 4.8 per 1000 patients; P = .10). Recommendations to initiate thromboprophylaxis were accepted by primary clinical teams 25.8% of the time (74 of 287 hospitalizations). Minor bleeding events were rare among patients who received anticoagulation (3 of 74 [4.1%]), and no major bleeding events were observed during the study period. Among patients randomized to the control group, the model exhibited high discrimination accuracy ( C statistic, 0.799, 95% CI, 0.725 to 0.856). Conclusions and Relevance In this randomized clinical trial of the use of a HA-VTE prognostic model to reduce pediatric inpatient rates of HA-VTE, despite the use of an accurate and validated prognostic model for HA-VTE, there was substantial reluctance by primary clinical teams to initiate thromboprophylaxis as recommended. In this context, rates of HA-VTE between the control and intervention groups were not different. Future research is needed to identify improved strategies for prevention of HA-VTE and to overcome clinician concerns regarding thromboprophylaxis. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04574895